Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
(All summer, Adam Pfeifer will be putting the tightest fantasy football picks under the microscope in our ADP Decisions series.)
We continue our 2021 fantasy football ADP series with an interesting debate between two talented, young running backs. Cam Akers showed flashes of brilliance to end his rookie campaign in 2020, while Joe Mixon has shown flashes of that same brilliance over the course of his career. However, injuries have limited Mixon’s upside but both running backs are coming off the board right near each other.
So which running back do I prefer for 2021?
Take a look at the previous ADP battle: Michael Thomas vs. Keenan Allen
Let’s break it down.
The case for Cam Akers
We see it every single season for rookie running backs. The first half of the year consists of inconsistent playing time, some struggles and injuries. However, at a certain point down the stretch, everything clicks for these talented players, and they post league-winning numbers for fantasy. Akers actually opened the season as the Rams starting running back but got hurt in Week 2, missed Weeks 3 and 4, and then was the backup running back up until the end of Week 12. In their game against San Francisco, the Rams offense couldn’t get anything going unless they handed the ball to Akers, who finished the game with 84 yards and a touchdown on just nine carries. The following week, Akers got the start and carried the ball 21 times for 72 yards and a score. From then on, he didn’t look back, as Akers averaged 21.5 carries and 1.75 carries inside the 5-yard line per game. During that same span, he played just over 67% of the offensive snaps, despite missing some time against the Jets in Week 15. Heading into his sophomore season, the sky’s the limit for Akers.
For starters, head coach Sean McVay recently stated that there are no limitations on how the team can use Akers, and we started to see that to end the 2020 season. The situation is good, too. The Rams offensive line took a massive step forward last year and performed really well. Per FTN’s Advanced O-Line stats, Los Angeles finished sixth in the NFL in yards before contact per attempt (1.82). They were also fifth overall in total yards created before contact.
The offensive line went from a question mark to a positive, while the offense should be on the rise after Matthew Stafford was traded to the Rams. In 2020, Los Angeles’ offense faced 209 plays with at least seven defenders in the box, good for the third-highest rate in the NFL. A huge reason behind that is the fact that this passing attack offered next to nothing vertically. Jared Goff averaged an absurdly low 6.2 intended air yards per pass attempt last year, the third-lowest mark among all qualified signal callers. Meanwhile, his 5.98-yard average depth of target was the third-lowest mark among quarterbacks with at least 70 pass attempts. Because opposing defenses weren’t afraid of getting beat over the top, they stacked the box against a run-first offense. That will change with Stafford under center, who posted an 8.71-yard aDOT last year and has been inside the top-five in that department in each of his last two seasons. Stafford will open up this entire offense, thus, creating less congested running lanes for Akers.
So everything is trending up for Akers. He is a super-talented second-year player with an ascending workload and an offense that is going to be better and (likely) higher-scoring than it was a season ago. Perhaps Darrell Henderson (who was good last year) will still see some work but all signs are pointing towards Akers picking up right where he left off to end his rookie campaign.
The case for Joe Mixon
Mixon’s 2020 season, meanwhile, was kind of the opposite of Akers’. He dominated the workload to start the year, averaging 23.3 touches per game through his first six games. However, he then suffered a foot injury that bothered him for the entire year, ending his season. The efficiency wasn’t through the roof for Mixon — he averaged just 3.6 yards per carry, just 1.9 yards before first contact per rush, which was a bottom-10 number in the league. Unlike the Rams offensive line, Cincinnati’s run-blocking unit is not good, and it didn’t improve much during the offseason, though it could have. However, while we expect Akers to have that massive workload in year two, it is a lock that Mixon gets it, regardless of all these conflicting reports out of Cincinnati. The Bengals don’t have a backup running back as talented as the Rams do in Henderson. Mixon also has a higher pass-catching ceiling, as he averaged 3.5 receptions and 4.3 targets per game last year. He was also eighth among running backs in routes run before suffering his injury, and although Giovani Bernard is gone, don’t forget that Mixon’s routes were already on the rise when Bernard was healthy last year. So while Mixon is in an offense that has three very good wide receivers, he should still project to see more targets than Akers, especially since the Bengals were second in pass attempts before Joe Burrow’s injury last season.
The verdict: Cam Akers
Honestly, I believe much of the fantasy community would easily prefer Akers over Mixon for 2021. And guess what?
I agree.
While it is close for me, I just think Akers showed us that he can clearly be a workhorse running back in the NFL down the stretch last season, and I believe the upgrade at quarterback is going to drastically open things up for the entire Los Angeles offense. As it stands right now, Mixon might have the better chance of seeing 25 touches per game, but I think Akers is going to be more efficient on his 20 touches than Mixon would be on his 25. And with Los Angeles also having a top-tier defensive unit, we could also see plenty of games where Akers is in very positive gamescripts, while the same can’t be said for Mixon, especially in a division with three scary run defenses in Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cleveland. Both have immense volume ceilings, but I like the situation for Akers a bit more.
